Causes of Leg Cramps

No one knows exactly the cause of leg cramps. Dr. Andrew Weil says they may be caused by “inadequate stretching and muscle fatigue” (http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/QAA307009). Other potential causes are muscle atrophy due to aging & inactivity, dehydration, circulation problems, low iron levels, smoking, low levels of minerals (such as potassium, magnesium and calcium), pregnancy, hypothyroidism and other medical conditions. According to the Mayo Clinic, these cramps are usually harmless, but in some cases could indicate diabetes or peripheral artery disease. For information about when you should see a doctor, you can go to http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/night-leg-cramps/MY00410.

Prevention

So what can you do to prevent or relieve leg cramps? Both Dr. Weil and the Mayo Clinic suggest stretching. I’ll give you a couple stretches that could help below. You might want to stretch briefly before going to bed if you’re worried about leg cramps waking you up. It’s important to stay hydrated, so make sure you’re drinking enough water during the day (most nutritionists recommend 8 glasses per day). Remember that beverages containing caffeine and alcohol act as a diuretic, causing you to excrete more water, so don’t include these in your 8 glasses a day.

Some other suggestions from Dr. Weil include taking warm baths, massage, acupuncture, exercise, and quitting smoking. Once you’ve got a cramp, you can try flexing your toes toward your face or massaging your foot with your hands or some ice. Walking may also bring relief. Make sure you don’t tuck your sheets in too tight at the foot of your bed.

How important is diet?

Dr. Weil suggests taking a calcium/magnesium supplement, as does Julie Halpin, a Certified Nutrition Consultant (www.thefoodworks.com). She recommends one supplement to clients that also includes the herbs valerian and passion flower for their calming effect.
Julie suggests eating foods high in minerals like calcium, magnesium and potassium. Some of these foods include:

dark leafy greens like kale and spinach
nuts and seeds, especially almonds and sesame seeds
whole grains
potatoes
bananas

Rather than relying on dairy for calcium, sesame seeds and leafy greens may be a better choice, as some people have allergies to dairy.

Foot Alignment Matters

The Mayo Clinic also states that flat feet may be a cause of leg cramps, and suggests wearing shoes with support. Posture is very important in keeping your feet healthy. The typical American posture with pelvis thrust forward puts too much weight toward the front of the foot, which causes the arches to collapse. In my Balance Your Body Foundations program, I teach students to stand “in Balance”, so that the weight goes mainly into the heels, which keeps your arches healthy. I also teach people how to realign the feet to help reduce bunions and other foot problems.

Stretches to Prevent Cramps

Before bed, you can try a calf stretch. Face a wall and bring your right foot to the wall, so your toes are almost touching it. Take your left foot back about 2 feet. Your right foot points straight ahead and your left foot can turn slightly out. Check that your hips are squarely facing the wall. Place your hands on the wall and bend your right knee directly over the middle of your foot (not towards your big toe). Your left calf will get a big stretch. For a deeper stretch, take your left foot farther back. Relax your back and make sure you’re not lifting your chest. Remember to breathe. Hold the pose for 30-60 seconds and then reverse.

For healthy hamstrings, bending in Balance is essential. This means to bend from your hip joints, not your waist. If you make it a habit to bend this way all the time, your hamstrings will stay much more flexible. We see people in less-industrialized countries able to easily bend down to pick up things off the ground with their backs very straight. In this country, many people have trouble putting on their shoes and socks as they get older, due to increasingly tight hamstring muscles. So relax your belly and bend from your hip joints to stay flexible, and this may also help you reduce leg cramps.

To sum up (you’ve heard most of this before), eat a healthy diet, drink plenty of water, exercise regularly, stretch regularly, and learn healthy, aligned posture to prevent leg cramps.

UPDATE:
This is a response from one of the readers of this blog which you might find helpful:

“Re leg cramps: if you’re running into people who are really suffering, I do have an answer. A company called Hylands has an OTC homeopathic product called “Leg Cramps with Quinine.” I was desperate and this did the trick. I get cramps so bad I end up in tears and one pill works immediately. I only take them when I have a cramp so I don’t overuse them. They have saved me from excruciating pain.”

© 2011 Dana K. Davis

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed2

A lot of people are interested in sustainability these days, but is your posture sustainable? Another way of saying this is, “Do you have a sense of comfort and ease in your body when you’re going about your day, or do you struggle to have good posture and end up in pain?” If you’re not trying to have “good posture”, then are you just collapsing when you sit and stand?

This is so common today everywhere you look. A recent student told me that after taking the Balance Your Body course, she saw examples of unhealthy posture everywhere she looked. It’s our basic default posture in the U.S. But this can be changed at any age – it just takes some practice. Let’s look at posture in the garden, and I’ll give you some helpful tips from the Balance Posture Method as well as from Permaculture, so you can enjoy your time in your garden without sacrificing your back.

(I wrote about “Pain-Free Gardening” last year in August and September, and if you missed those articles, you can read them by going to the archive.)

Tips for Healthy Posture in the Garden

One thing we have learned from observing people in Balance (with natural, healthy posture) is that they use their feet to get to where they want to go. I described healthy bending in my August, 2009 article. One other aspect of healthy bending, in addition to bending from your hip joints, is to get close to the item you are bending toward.

If you want to pick something up, don’t try to grab it from 2 feet away. I’ve been known to do this in my “pre-Balance” days – to be in a hurry and think I don’t have the time to walk right up to the thing I want to pick up. People in Balance walk up to the object until they are usually standing right over it. If you do this, you’ll be in a much safer place to lift the object. Use your feet, not your back.

When you’re digging, again it’s important to bend at your hip crease, not your waist. If you’re shoveling dirt, don’t leave your feet facing one direction and then twist to dump the dirt into a wheelbarrow. Instead, like I mentioned above, use your feet! That way you won’t be twisting your spine, which is dangerous, especially with a load.

Use your abdominal muscles (we call this “bracing”) when you’re digging or pulling tough weeds out of the ground. This helps to protect your back by stabilizing your spine. I teach bracing in the Balance Your Body course. You need to first of all make sure your spine is fairly straight and elongated, then brace to stabilize your spine in that position. This gives you a lot of strength when lifting, carrying, digging, etc.

I’ve been asked numerous times about weeding, and how to work close to the ground. Some Balanced people squat to work low, especially in Asia. Others sit on a low support (in Portugal they may sit on a coffee can). Most of us in the U.S. will do better sitting on a low stool or chair than squatting, since squatting causes most people’s backs to round. You can also kneel to do some weeding, if your knees will allow it. Try a pad under your knees so they won’t be sore later. You’ll also need to make sure your back is straight & elongated in this position.

Tips from Permaculture

Finally, some of the things I learned from Permaculture (Regenerative Design Institute – www.regenerativedesign.org, Daily Acts – www.dailyacts.org) can be really helpful to make gardening more comfortable. Plan your garden for ease by putting things you need to tend to often in “zone 1”. This zone starts right at your front or back steps and extends out from about 0-25 feet. In other words, don’t put plants that you need to harvest daily at the far end of your garden. Make it easy on yourself.

The Garden at RDI

If you pay attention to your alignment while you’re in the garden, you’ll be more likely to keep gardening for many years in comfort. If you also plan your garden with some Permaculture principles in mind, you can save yourself extra work and time. Both the Balance Method of posture and Permaculture can help you to create a more sustainable life – for your garden, the environment, and your body.

© Dana K. Davis, 2010

Unfortunately, all that activity in the garden can also lead to aches & pains.  Digging, raking, pruning and carrying can leave you with pain in lots of places: your back, neck, shoulders, wrists, and knees.  Using the postural techniques of the Balance Method when you move in the garden can make all the difference.  I learned this through a very painful experience.

I had a living Christmas tree that was growing too big for my patio in San Francisco, so I decided to give it away to my sister, who had a bigger yard.  Now, I had learned healthy bending (Bending in Balance) at that time, but I was in a hurry to get this tree in my car.  After rushing to grab the tree, shove it in my car, drive to my sister’s house and pull the tree out of the car, I was relieved to get that task finished and join my family for a trip out of town.

That is, until I bent over to pick up something really light, and felt my back scream! I realized that my lack of awareness in lifting the tree had messed up my back.  It was really painful to get in and out of the car, and if I tried to sit down in a chair in my old posture, I was in too much pain and had to stand up!

Through practicing Balance day and night I was able to get to a place of no pain very quickly.  Sitting, standing and sleeping in Balance provided relief immediately.

So, Balance can help relieve those pains that you may get from overdoing it in the garden.  But I’ve heard it said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  I’d like to give you some tips so that you can hopefully avoid those aches & pains and keep enjoying your garden.  If you want more hands on practice, I’m also available for private sessions in your garden to coach you on your posture, and look for my “Pain-Free Gardening” workshop coming up later this month.

Healthy Bending in the Garden

The most important thing is to stand, bend and walk in Balance in your garden.  If you bring some extra attention to your posture, it will definitely pay off.  Let’s look at Bending.

When I threw my back out, what I had just done was bending and twisting, most likely from the waist.  So, remember, whenever you bend, bend from your hip joints, not from your waist.  This is the place where your legs join your torso, not belt level.  If you stand and lift one knee up, you’ll see the place where your clothing will fold at the top of your leg.  That’s where you should bend.

It’s really helpful to practice this slowly a few times to make sure you really are bending from your hip crease.  Many people think they are doing this, but they are actually rounding their backs and bending from the waist.

Practicing slowly several times will help you to retrain yourself with new, healthy movement patterns.  It’s also helpful to take one hand and feel your back when you are bending.  What’s happening back there?  Do you feel the bones poking way out?  If so, you’ll need to relax your belly and bend more deeply at your hip crease.  Make sure your knees are at least slightly bent, and that your feet are at least hip width from each other.

What if you touch your back and you feel a deep indentation instead?  This is common in more flexible people.  This means you are probably lifting your chest and over-arching your back.  You’ll need to drop your front ribs, and you may even need to use your abdominal muscles to stabilize your torso while bending.

One more detail about bending: never twist when you are bending!  This is really important!  This is how I hurt my back.  I’ve also heard this from many people – “I just bent over and twisted and then I felt this sharp pain in my back.”  When you are bending, keep your entire body facing the same direction.  When you need to turn, use your feet and turn your whole body at the same time, rather than twisting at the waist.

This doesn’t mean that you should never twist.  Just don’t twist when bending or carrying weight – only twist a straight spine.

Watch for a future post with more tips on pain-free Gardening.  I’d also like to recommend the workshops and sustainability tours of Daily Acts (www.dailyacts.org), if you want to learn more and get inspired about how your actions can make a difference.  I wish you many enjoyable hours in your garden.  Pay attention to your bending and you won’t have to “pay” for your time spent in your garden!

Do you have a question about posture that you would like answered in this E-zine?  Comment below; I’d love your suggestions.